


Bearing Witness

by R_Knight



Series: Lilting [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Affection, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Cultural Differences, Introspection, M/M, Magic, Multimedia, Mythology - Freeform, Neediness, Obliviousness, Shapeshifting, Slow Build, Soul Bond, Traditions, Witches, Worldbuilding, like extreme obliviousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-07-18 17:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16123631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Knight/pseuds/R_Knight
Summary: Braden liked his two selves separate, wanted the bear to be a bear, and the boy a boy: no special senses or extra strength, no yearning for the rivers or vague territorial aggression. He had to make things separate, because he was going to be a hockey player, and hockey players were human.(or:He said bluntly, “So, about Andre,” and then: “He doesn’t know.”)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saebrin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saebrin/gifts).



> I hope that this is to your liking Saebrin, I read in your letter 'battling with nonhuman urges', 'soulbonds', and 'worldbuilding' and this idea sort of popped into my head fully formed. I also ended up making bits of multimedia stuff for it, but I'm aware some people don't dig images in their fics so I'm just going to put them in a second chapter rather than embed them. 
> 
> [Warnings for: mentioning of a kid's arm being broken by accident, minor burn injury, and also animals eating other animals, but generally nothing explicit.]
> 
> Lastly, thank you Maia for the betaing and the cheerleading and encouragement.

_"...the monster can be anyone and anywhere,_

_and we_ _only know it when it springs upon us_

 _or emerges from within us."_ **  
**

-J Weinstock, Invisible Monsters

 

**Braden**

Braden was taught from a young age not to talk about his _abilities_. About that other side of him, the same side that his mom and his grandma and grandpa had. He was taught to skirt around the subject, to use euphemisms – to say _abilities_ instead of _magic_ , talk about _other_ sides and other selves and other things he did when he couldn’t hang out with his friends after school.

“But won’t they want to know _what_ things I’m doing?” Braden asked after one particularly forceful reminder from his mother, just shy of thirteen and concerned primarily with being cool and having friends and not reminding anyone ever of the fact that he very occasionally turned into a bear, even though it was sort of an open secret at this point. _Stay away from the Holtby farm around the new moon; they had a half dozen shifters in the family, and bear shifters were the most aggressive of their kind_. (Same thing with the Thibaults, who were generally nice people until you stepped foot in their garden without permission, upon which you’d find plant vines twisting in your direction, thorny and vicious. Or the kindergarten teacher Miss Finbarr, who came from Ireland and sometimes told the children stories about how her father was found at the edge of a forest as a baby, swaddled in blankets that glowed with golden threads and carried with them the scent of honeydew – but that she never got to know him, because one night he had taken a stroll in the forest, and never came back.)

In answer to Braden’s question, his mom said _no_ , and _don’t be silly, you’re fine baby_ , _it’ll be fine_ , _just don’t talk about it_ , and that was that.

Still. He had worried what they might think of him, what his friends would do if the rumors got loud enough, if they saw him in his weakest moments – when the spring breeze came rushing through town and with it the scent of life, of beginnings, of the hundreds and thousands of salmon that were pushing their way up-stream, miles and miles away. His mom said that it was just in his head, because the first of their kind had dragged their way up the same streams, bears made into men by a woman, a wish, a curse, whatever the stories said. And maybe she was a little right, because sometimes Braden imagined he could feel the phantom mud under his nails, the rushing water between his fingertips as he dragged himself out of the river and onto land, the taste of salmon between his teeth. 

His grandparents understood though, winking behind her back and whispering that they could smell it too, because bears could smell for miles and miles, and even in human form they still had a little bear in them, didn’t they? Which was sort of the problem. Braden liked his two selves separate, wanted the bear to be a bear, and the boy a boy: no special senses or extra strength, no yearning for the rivers or vague territorial aggression. He needed to be _normal_. Not because he disliked what he was, because he didn’t, not at all. The feeling of shedding his skin and running about with his mom and grandparents was special, and not something he could ever give up.

But Braden still had to make things separate, because he was going to be a hockey player.

And hockey players were human.

-

Braden learnt pretty quickly that balancing both sides of himself and playing a contact sport was almost impossible. There was a reason so little of their kind ended up in sports – or at least openly so. Shifters especially tended to carry their magic with them, struggled with shutting that part away like other non-humans could. His mom liked to tell him this over and over, his dad nodding in agreement, _that’s just how it is_ , _you’d be best sticking to farming._ He refused to believe that though, and in the end stumbled by accident onto the solution to his problems. The coach for his local team was swapping them out regularly as goalies since the previous kid that had been goalie moved away, and when it was Braden’s turn, well. That was it. _That was it_. The thrill of the game was there, the speed and pressure and all of it, but just with this extra single-minded focus. And without the contact, the risk that the bear might well up at an inopportune moment was practically gone.

He told his dad about it when he picked him up from practice, explained all the ways it was amazing and perfect and great, and then he told his mom and his sisters and his grandparents when they visited for dinner, until his grandpa had laughed and offered to take him outside to play for a bit.

“All that _energy_ , I haven’t seen you so animated since you were just a little cub,” he said, steering Braden away from everyone’s bemused expressions and out the front door, “Used to be able to fit you right beneath my paw, then, too. Not the case anymore, huh bud?”

Braden fought the urge to puff up, to explain how his sister had measured him stood on his back paws the other day and found him to be a whole hand and a half taller than last time they measured. He had to remind himself not to get too invested in those things, in how much better he’d gotten at hunting, or how brave he could be off on his own these days – the bear was much clingier than his human self, something Taryn liked to make fun of him for when he’d follow mom around on his paws for hours until she would finally huff and shed her skin to pay him some attention.

“Nope,” Braden couldn’t help but say anyway, “I’ll be bigger than you soon probably.”

He knew that wasn’t even close to true – even besides the fact that he was still a long way off fully grown, Grandpa was particularly huge, and Braden would be lucky if he ever got that big. Grandpa laughed like Braden expected him to, tugging off his shoes and socks and placing them neatly by the front porch.

“You’ll get there bud,” he said, gesturing for Braden to perch on the stairs so he could help him with his laces. Braden had already tried to tell him that he was getting good at his laces now, especially since he’d started hockey, but the fact that it took him significantly longer than Taryn had to learn sort of stuck with grandpa, and half the time Braden couldn’t be bothered to argue. Once their shoes were off – not a necessity for the change, but a tradition that Braden thought had something to do with grounding themselves or honoring nature or something – Grandpa gave Braden a firm pat on his shoulder, and within one blink and the next had shed his human skin in favor of the huge black bear.

Braden quickly did the same, if a little less gracefully, and then they were off. They didn’t really communicate so much in this form, but they didn’t need to. Braden knew what Grandpa intended for tonight; a run around the farm, a little hunting, a brief nose at the cows before Grandpa would smack him with one big paw and he’d have to run as fast as he could to avoid the scolding that probably wouldn’t even follow. Then he’d submit to some grooming and fall asleep curled up on the porch, where mom would come get him and carry him to bed to wake up tomorrow morning a little more settled, a little less itchy in his human skin. It wasn’t good for them to stay human too long, and having extreme emotions made it even more necessary, so it was a good thing to do if he wanted to keep playing hockey.

Although, now that he was going to be a goalie, that did change some things. He still had to keep it separate, stay in control of himself at all times, but there was a little less need to worry about physical aggression. People didn’t tend to fight goalies, and those that did deserved what they got probably.

 

Unfortunately, when you were a bear shifter with the ability to hit significantly harder than your human friends, it didn’t matter if they deserved it or not, because no one felt sympathy for the kid that broke his own teammates arm. Braden learnt that lesson quickly and harshly: not long after he decided that he wanted to be a goalie, there was an incident during practice when one of the other kids came in too fast and ended up crashing into Braden. Braden hadn’t thought, just acted upon the irritation of being slammed into, and a little bit because of the territorial feelings that welled up when someone got too far into his goal.

( _The_ goal. _The_ , not _his_. He repeated mantras in bed at night to try and shake the thought: _the goal isn’t mine, the goal isn’t mine, the goal isn’t mine._ )

So Braden used all his strength, and he shoved the other boy out of his goal. The sickening crack that followed as he went sliding across the ice – the shriek of pain – stuck with Braden all the way through the rest of the day, when the ambulance came and said the arm was broken, when the other kids had turned his way with matching looks of fear and suspicion, when his parents were called and he had to sit in silence the entire drive back home, waiting for either of them to say something, to shout, do anything. Instead he sat, and he waited, still half-dressed in his pads, until his parents pulled up to their home. And then his mom left the car without even looking at him, and his dad turned around to face him.

“No more hockey Braden,” he said, his expression grave.

“But–”

“ _No._ You could have killed that boy, do you understand that? If you had caught his neck or his face, he’d be _dead_ ,” He paused, shaking his head. “And all for what? To play hockey? To protect that goal of yours? I’ve seen the way you behave around that thing Braden, it’s like you’ve forgotten everything your mother taught you.”

“I was trying,” Braden said, his voice quiet. “I was trying to be good.”

“Not good enough.”

His dad didn’t say much more after that, and Braden spent the rest of the day in his room, intermittently feeling sorry for himself, and then feeling guilty about feeling sorry for himself when one of his teammates had a broken arm. A broken arm that was Braden’s fault. He hadn’t meant to do it, but that didn’t really matter when it came to non-humans. There wasn’t anything official that said they would be punished worse than humans, but his parents had drilled into him from a young age how little non-humans were trusted to control themselves, and how that was even worse when it came to shifters.

If the other parents hadn’t been understanding – if his own parents weren’t so liked by the community as farmers in spite of being non-human, if Braden had hurt that boy worse than he did – then he could have ruined all the work his parents and other non-humans had put in over the years to be trusted here. To be accepted. He could have done all that, just because he wanted to play stupid hockey. So. No more hockey then.

Braden quickly went around his room gathering up all of his gear, his pads and his skates and his helmet, his sticks and the posters he had on the walls; he took it all and he stuffed it under his bed, where he’d never see it again. There. No more hockey.

No more territorial feelings about things he shouldn’t be. No more bear stuff when he was human, and no more worries about hiding that he was non-human from his teammates, because he didn’t have a team, and he wouldn’t be in the NHL.

So it was fine. He’d stay on the farm, and he’d take over when he got older, and it would all be fine.

-

Braden lasted maybe a week before he got so wound up with unspent energy and boredom that half-way through dinner mom slammed her fork down on the table and gestured over at him while looking at his dad.

“He needs something to occupy him, Jack. This isn’t going to work,” she said, angrier than Braden had ever seen her before, apart from that one time he was told he couldn’t go to a friend’s party in kindergarten in case he hurt the other kids, and mom had called up the parents and yelled at them for _hours_. Braden ducked his head and forked his peas into his mouth, hating that he was the reason for this, but not willing to say anything to stop it because he really had been feeling awful without hockey to focus on.

“He can’t play hockey any more, and you know that.” His dad said, and even though Braden had come to that conclusion too, he still _ached_. “Once he’s a bit bigger and he can handle more jobs around the farm, he’ll be fine. He’ll have something to focus him.”

“See, but he needs something _now_ , Jack.”

“Oh don’t start with that–” he continued, but Braden stopped listening half way through because he caught something out of the corner of his eye – looked up from his peas to see his Grandpa and Grandma outside the window, both of their skin shed in favor of the huge bears, balanced up on their back legs and waving their paws about as if they were trying to get Braden’s attention. He stifled a laugh.

“Um, may I be excused?” he asked his parents, relieved when they both gave their permission before resuming their argument. He didn’t want to be dragged into it more than he was already. Braden quickly took his plate to the sink, avoiding looking out the window again in case his grandparents were still there and he started laughing, then scurried out through the kitchen door.

When he found them, grandpa was still bear-shaped, lazing around on his back in a sun patch, graying snout twitching whenever a stray fly came near. Grandma had changed back, and was standing nearby, smiling fondly. When she saw Braden her smile widened, eyes twinkling as she opened her arms for him, and Braden didn’t hesitate, kicked his shoes off and shed his skin without a thought, bounding over to her.

“ _Oof_ ,” Braden heard as he bowled into her, and he took a moment to feel bad about throwing his whole body weight at her, but she was sturdier than she looked, and besides – bear brain wasn’t good at guilt. Or any other complex emotions really. He spent a few minutes snuffling at her and getting pet, and then snuffling at grandpa until he was swatted away, and then he curled up for a short nap between them.

(Braden still dreamed as a bear. This time it was of caterpillars and snow fall, of his grandparent’s happy faces, of the echoing sound of ice skates on a frozen lake. Of the matching skitter of his claws over ice. Of a deep resounding crack underfoot. Of a boy with poison under his fingernails.)

When Braden woke up, his grandparents had swapped places, grandma asleep with her head on her paws, shoes neatly set beside her, and grandpa sat with one hand settled protectively on Braden’s shoulder, the other turning pages of a magazine – something about birds and nature. He wiggled his toes in the grass for a second, stretching his arms above him and yawning.

“Good nap?” Grandpa asked absently, turning another page.

“Yup,” Braden said. He stared up at the blue skies above them, flat and cloudless. “Um. Grandpa?”

“Yeah, bud?”

“Can – can I ask you something?” Braden asked. Grandpa must have been waiting for him to say something, because he put his magazine aside right away, turning to fully face him, one hand still firm on Braden’s shoulder.

“Of course, of course. Is this about hockey?”

“Uh, yeah,” Braden said. He gently tugged a single blade of grass from the ground and began breaking it into pieces that he could tuck under his fingernails. “I- I hurt another boy on my team. So dad said I can’t play hockey any more, and mom agreed, and – and I thought I agreed at first, too. But, um.” Braden paused, stared at the green under his nails. He didn’t know what he felt, really, didn’t know how to finish the sentence. All he knew was that not playing hockey, the idea of never even _trying_ to get in the NHL made him feel sick and aching.

“But you still want to play, huh?” Grandpa said when Braden didn’t continue. He nodded, still not looking up. “Well, I won’t go against what your father has told you, Braden. But if hockey is something you want – if there’s nothing else you want but that, then I think you should do what you think is best.”

Braden looked up then, surprised. “But – but I hurt another boy.”

“We’ve all hurt someone,” Grandad said. “Not us, shifters, or even us non-humans, but humans too. Everyone’s hurt someone by accident, kid. Sure you got more baggage to work with than the average hockey player, and you gotta make sure you don’t get too territorial, but if it’s what you want to do, then damn it Braden, you should do it.”

“But –”

“Ah! No more buts. Do you think it was easy starting up a farm, Braden? Nobody wanted men who became bears to own a cattle farm, no one thought it was anything other than a way for us to eat,” grandpa said, emphasizing his words with a heavy squeeze to Braden’s shoulder. “Finding the farm was hard, and buying the cattle was hard, and even getting people to buy _from_ us was hard in the beginning, good cows or not. But we showed them. Me and my brothers and your grandma, we worked and worked, and it wasn’t easy, but look at us now.”

Grandpa gestured expansively around them with his free hand, the other still a heavy reminder on Braden’s shoulder. “You understand?” he asked, head tilted to the side, eyes piercing. Braden had always known Grandpa was technically a scary man – even when he wasn’t a six hundred pound bear, he was still a big man, with hands like spades and a body made strong from years of farm work, even now, in his retirement. So Braden knew that, he’d heard kids and other people around Marshall talk about him, but he’d never seen it himself until now, hit abruptly with the image of him, young and intense and ready to do anything to succeed in his dreams. Formidable.

And Braden understood it, then. Not just what his Grandpa had done to get what he wanted, but what Braden had to do, to get his dream. To dig his claws in. To prove them wrong: his dad, the kids at school, the media and the world that thought he was too animal for a game that had, at its heart, a sort of savageness that Braden couldn’t see in any other sports. Maybe he was biased, but whatever, he knew what he wanted, and what he’d do to get there.

Braden nodded.

-

Braden got _drafted._ Braden got drafted to the _Washington Capitals._ He was nineteen, and his last season with the Blades ended up being the best yet. He had been playing intermittently with the Hershey Bears and the Sting Rays in the ECHL since, but most importantly, he could be called up at any time. He could be playing in the NHL literally any time from now, and it was terrifying, but it was worth it, so so worth it.

So worth the years of extra practices, of hours long meditation sessions with his grandparents, of forcing his body to follow his will, to separate the bear from his human self. Years of quietly hiding his non-human status from his teammates for fear of how they’d react, of who they would tell. None of it mattered the second his name had been called at the draft, because – because that was it. That was what he’d been working for all this time, and he finally had it within his grasp.

Except, then: towards the end of the summer after the ’09-10 season, when Braden was re-learning to control himself after a solid month at home letting the bear be as wild as he wanted, his dad silently handed him the newspaper one morning, his mouth pulled into a thin line. When Braden looked down, it only took a second to see what he was referring to. The headline took up almost two thirds of the page, big capital letters printed over the image of Jaromir Jagr; a few years dated, because they had clearly hunted down the most vicious looking image they could find of him.

NHL JAGR OUTED AS NON-HUMAN, LEAGUE OFFICIALS QUESTION FAIRNESS OF PLAY. 

The rest of the article went downhill from there, full of thinly veiled hatred, the same old ‘worries’ about the aggression of shifters, the sneakiness of the European types, if those with _magic powers_ should be disqualified because of cheating, if the non-humans could ever separate themselves enough from their other selves to play a fair game. When Braden finished reading and looked up at his dad, he had a serious look to his face, but Braden could see the concern in his eyes.

Braden was so, _so_ close. He could taste the ice in the back of his throat, feel the phantom slip of his skates underfoot. Hockey season was barely a month away, and Braden had been hoping and dreaming about his first NHL game, protecting his goal – the _Washington Capital’s goal_ , against another NHL team. Braden wasn’t ready to give that up. He _wouldn’t._ The league couldn’t officially discriminate against non-human players, no matter what the commentators or the fans might want, so Braden figured their only options were inventing some sort of handicap, or writing a new and convoluted rule that would disqualify non-human players on a technicality. Even if they did either of those, they couldn’t force players to admit to being non-human, and there was no officially recognized way of confirming it anyway, since it presented differently depending what you were.

The only sure-fire way to know was if you were non-human yourself, because there was a nebulous sort of – feeling, like an extra sense that flagged other people as distinctly not human. Braden had faith that no non-human would ever work to prevent others like them from playing, so he figured that as long as he kept it locked down, continued playing like he was playing, didn’t mention it to anyone, and talked about his family as little as possible on the off chance someone recognized the name – well, it should be fine. His dad clearly wasn’t happy, but they’d exhausted the subject years ago now, and Braden was used to his dad’s silent disapproval over anything related to hockey; his sincere belief that Braden would end up back at the farm one way or other. It didn’t bother him so much anymore, knowing that it came from a place of concern.

Also, because he didn’t have to deal with it for most of the year.

-

Pre-season started, and then the actual hockey season got into full swing, and while Braden did have the worry of being found out on his peripheries, especially when other players started to admit to being non-human (or, as Braden worried more and more was the case, that they were forced to), hockey took up so much time and focus that he just didn’t have the energy to think about it. Braden practiced hockey, played hockey, trained his body, trained himself, played more hockey, and then, suddenly: his first NHL game.

When Neuvirth got pulled after the Caps dropped a three-goal lead against Boston, Braden was quickly slotted into the empty space he left behind, the spot in front of the goal, his crease, his crease. _His goal._ Everything Braden had trained for, every way that he had prepared himself, it all disappeared beneath the weight of his excitement, his feral delight. He knew, vaguely, that it was the bear taking over, but that faded behind the discovery that this goal was _his_ now, this stick was his, this team was his, this half of the ice was _his_. Braden was twitchy with adrenaline and statue-like in his motionlessness. Like the lakes back at home, quiet and deceptively tranquil, but with entire worlds that existed beneath their surface. Full of life. Invincible.

Braden took a breath. Then another. And then he played hockey.

-

The rest of the game passed in approximately no time at all. Braden made four saves, the Caps got two more goals, they won. He stripped his pads off with a vicious glee, barely able to keep his emotions from being written all over his face, barely able to keep it from his _body_. He felt like he had when he first played as a goalie again, excited and eager and not human, not at all. It was only years of training that prevented him from shedding his skin the same way he did his pads, from roaring his happiness into the off-white ceilings.

If they hadn’t won he might have had some trouble separating himself from the goal, but as it was, he was too swept up in the celebration, in the emotions welling up beneath his skin with every forehead bump and shoulder pat, in the way Ovechkin yelled ‘ _Holtby!’_ at him, drawing it out as he grabbed Braden in a bone-crunching hug. Too swept up to care about anything. So for a little while, he didn’t.

It didn’t last for long though. In his bed that night, after the adrenaline had gone and the bear receded back from behind his teeth, Braden found himself unable to sleep, obsessing over everything he’d said, everything he’d done during the game. He’d played well – he hadn’t hurt anyone, hadn’t done anything stupid like growl at a player that got too close to the goal. But he’d been so caught up in it, the bear so close to the surface, and it went against everything he’d ever told himself, everything he’d every practiced and trained for.

But it had felt so _good_. He wasn’t sure if he’d played better than he usually did, didn’t think there was a way to tell when he’d played for all of ten minutes, but letting himself just be – be what he was, what his nature wanted him to be, had felt incredible. He could see himself becoming obsessed with that feeling, with chasing the rush, the release.

Which was exactly why he had to stop. He hadn’t shed his skin that time, hadn’t hurt anyone _that_ time. But what about the time he did? What about when a player got too close, teammate or not, and all he wanted to do was protect the goal? It wouldn’t just be a broken arm that time, and Braden couldn’t risk the consequences of that. Non-humans were already struggling to prove that they could play in the league without cheating, without hurting anyone. Braden couldn’t be the person that ruined it for all of them.

It took longer than it should have with how tired he was, but newly resolved, Braden finally fell asleep.

-

With the excitement from playing his first game in the NHL and his pre-occupation with keeping all the separate parts of himself hidden, Braden hadn’t been paying much attention to his teammates. The next day during practice that became increasingly clear when Braden realized, somewhat abruptly, that he was _surrounded_ by non-humans.

He was mid-stretch out on the ice, but frozen in place, staring out at the other players that he really hadn’t registered were non-human before. Far from the official estimates (that was maybe one per team, if any at all), Braden could count Backstrom, Semin, and Neuvirth – Green and Laich too, among others. Braden sort of understood how he might not have noticed; he hadn’t been looking after all, but more than that, he couldn't figure out how he didn’t know  _before_. How word hadn’t gotten out somehow that the NHL was apparently _full_ of non-humans, nothing at all like the sparse few that the media had reassured everyone was the case after Jagr had been found out.

Braden must have stayed frozen long enough to garner attention, because Ovechkin started skating in his direction, looking concerned. Braden had a moment to be honestly surprised that Ovechkin wasn’t non-human, because if it was anyone, Braden would have for sure put his money on him – and then he was craning his neck back to take in the man fully, unsure if he was about to be reprimanded or given a pep-talk. 

“Holtby!” Ovechkin said, “You gonna be starting goalie tomorrow, coach told me.”

 _Oh_. Braden went from concerned and unsure to absolutely _humming_ with anticipation. He must have played well, but more than that, he couldn’t have let on that he was non-human if they were having him start only two days after his first ever NHL game.

“Thanks,” Braden managed to get out, relieved and excited and entirely unsure what else to say. He didn’t really know Ovechkin that well yet, only what he’d read about him, what he’d seen of him in games. A big character. Effusive. Played with his heart sewn into the hems of his jersey. Seemingly a polar opposite to Backstrom, but the more Braden saw of him, the more he thought that maybe that wasn’t quite the case. And now Braden knew he was – he was something. Something like Braden, except maybe not at all the same, because Northern European non-humans were a whole different breed of creature than the Canadian shifters. There was something old, something ancient in them that Braden couldn’t put a name to.

“Nicke tells me you a bear,” Ovechkin said after a moment, and Braden froze, feeling all of a sudden like the animal he was - caught in a trap.

“Uh,” Braden said, unsure whether to outright lie or if playing dumb might be a better idea. He was saved from having to decide when Backstrom appeared out of nowhere, quiet and unassuming and utterly terrifying in his tranquility. If Braden was a lake, then Backstrom was the entire ocean.

“Sorry,” Backstrom said, bumping his hip against Ovechkin’s a little too hard to be considered friendly. “O pretends he doesn’t know how to be polite. We wanted to say that this – that we are a bit different to other NHL teams. Lots of uh, monsters about, yes? If you wanted to talk about it, you aren’t going to get in trouble.”

After so many years of trying to keep the other part of him wrapped up and hidden away, hearing it be spoken about so openly was jarring. Braden didn’t know if the ache in his chest was anxiety or just relief. Instead of asking the hundred thousand questions he had; _how did you know what I am, what are you, how does Ovechkin know, do the coaches – does the league – is there more – are their others_ – instead of any of that, Braden just asked, “Different to other NHL teams?”

Backstrom shrugged. “Not that many of us on other teams. Two or three, maybe a few more if you count the AHL teams. But there’s a lot on the Caps. We think one of the higher-ups has a Changeling kid.”

 _A_ _Changeling kid_. Braden mouthed the words, pressed his tongue to the backs of his teeth. There was so much he didn’t know. He loved his family, his grandparents; his childhood hadn’t been missing anything, but Braden was beginning to think that maybe it had been a little more isolated from other non-humans than he had realized. Backstrom seemed to take pity on him, because he smiled a little, the barest quirk at the corner of his mouth.

“You don’t talk about what you are much, do you? You’ll get used to it. The league doesn’t like us still, would probably kick us out if it could, but there are too many of us now. Keep quiet about it around the humans,” Backstrom nudged at Ovechkin again, who rolled his eyes, “Don’t broadcast it to the world, and you’ll be fine.”

Braden swallowed, and nodded. This was a lot to think about. Backstrom nodded back, a dismissal of sorts, then skated away, fingers brushing Ovechkin’s sleeve as he went. Braden probably wasn’t imagining the little spark of energy he saw pass between them. Ovechkin caught him looking, and his smile grew a little conspiratorial.

“I’m good at keeping secrets,” he said, and then: “You should let bear out more often. Looks fun.”

-

Braden decided to stick to his plan and very much _not_ let the bear out right up until he took a step out onto the ice at game time. He hesitated for the breadth of a second, relishing in the lights and the music and the crowd, in the ice under his feet and the artificial chill in the air. An excited rumble began to rise in his chest, a scorching heat that burned in answer to the increasing energy of the crowd, of his teammates. He turned to watch Backstrom for a second, wondering at the intensity of those feelings, for some reason getting the sense that he had something to do with it. Braden would have to ask later.

In the meantime, Braden stretched, and watched his teammates do the same. Watched them flick the pucks around and get themselves ready for the game while he cleared his own mind, singled his focus. Let that shaking heat well up behind his teeth, spread out across his skin.

And then they took their places, and the game began, and Braden let it swallow him whole.

-

Four months later, when Braden got his first shutout against the Oilers, the Caps winning 5-0, he barely contained himself long enough to get showered and into his suit. Itching and uncomfortable under a second skin, he let himself be shepherded back to the hotel by Nicke’s gentle hands, hands that tingled and sparked and made him feel _less_ human, if anything, and then unceremoniously shoved through a hotel room door. He kicked off his shoes, didn’t get more than a half-step into the room before he was shedding his skin and getting down on all fours.

Things got a little fuzzy from there, but when he woke up he was covered with a blanket at least – even if he was on the floor, surrounded by what was really only the remnants of his hotel room. Which, upon second glance, wasn’t even his hotel room.

Braden shifted up into sitting, looking over at the room’s bed – over at Nicke and Ovi, who were sat shoulder to shoulder with their backs against the headboard, watching whatever was on the TV. When they noticed Braden, they both smiled, a little awkward.

“Sorry,” Nicke said, “We thought we should probably keep an eye on you. Was that – okay?”

Honestly Braden was too settled to care that they had apparently not only seen him shed his skin, but also wreck their entire room in his excitement. “I didn’t hurt you?” He asked, just to check. They both shook their heads.

“You wouldn’t,” Ovi said, somehow absolutely certain of the fact. Braden didn’t question it.

“I’m not a shifter, so I only know from what Greenie and Sasha – Semin – told us. He knows a few bear shifters.” Nicke said, a little apologetic, “But going halfway there isn’t a substitute for the full thing. You have to shift more.”

Which was – honestly the most pressing thing Braden had been worrying about. Or, thinking that he’d be worrying about as soon as the post-shed high had settled. Braden wondered for a second if Nicke could read minds, then resolved to ask him later.

“It uh – It wasn’t because I let my control go during games?”

“Not at all,” Nicke said, surprised. “Some of that feeling is because of me, probably, but you’ve never shifted on the ice, never seemed anything other than yourself, just a little –”

“Little wild. At the edges,” Ovi cut in. For what felt like the hundredth time, Braden marveled at the fact that Ovi wasn’t a shifter. That his physicality, his own wildness, was entirely human.

“But I do need to shed my skin more,” Braden ventured, already trying to figure out the logistics of doing so while on the road, on finding time when he was sent back down to the AHL.

“As much as you can. My own – what I am, it heightens things, pushes you towards your nature. When you’re playing with us, you can use my place, or Alex’s whenever you want. Just ask,” Nicke said, tilting his head to regard Alex for a moment, contemplating. “I think the others would be fine with it too – Greenie pretty much spends more time as a wolf than a human, he’d understand.”

“Definitely would not,” Ovi said, faking at outrage, “You want to get him eaten?” Braden watched them, amused, as their attention rapidly left him for each other, both gearing up for an argument.

“I think Greenie would be the one getting eaten,” Nicke said imperiously.

“You want to bet?”

-

Nobody got eaten, and no bets were made, because soon Braden was getting sent back down. He spent most of the next season re-learning how to play without the worry of repressing everything, trying to shed his skin as much as playing on an AHL team would allow, and just – playing hockey. Then he was pulled up again. And then he was playing in the playoffs, _starting_ in the playoffs. The Caps didn’t win, which hurt in a way that he’d never experienced before, but the feeling was lessened when he was told that he’d be the starting goalie for the ’12-13 season. He called his mom, called his sister, called everyone he could think of.

And then he carried on playing hockey.

-

Lock-outs aside, Braden’s life settled into an easy rhythm, with the steady ups and downs that accompanied hockey and the unexpected sort of family dynamic that came from a team so filled with non-humans. Their differences didn’t matter really so much as their similarities; namely that the league hated them and the public distrusted them, and that usually, if they were _lucky_ they would have a team that maybe tolerated them. Braden was lucky though, ending up with the Capitals, because besides maybe the Bruins (“Lots of cave-dwellers,” Laich had told him, smiling impassively, “You know, nocturnal types.” Braden didn’t know, but took him at his word), there wasn’t another team with an atmosphere of acceptance like theirs. Braden felt spoiled, a little, every time he called his parents and told them about his teammates and what he’d been learning about them, from them – hockey or otherwise.

-

Braden didn’t pay too much attention to the rookies that came up from the Otters, not unless they were goalies, so he didn’t know much about the kid that would be playing his first NHL game until the practice before – until someone mentioned Burakovsky, a new kid who was a quick thing, lithe and tall and eager to please – and Braden thought, _okay_ , and _let’s see how he does_ , and _huh, he’s non-human._

And then, abruptly: _oh shit._

Braden had learned about soulbonds in school, was the thing. Just like every kid, he had heard the fairy tales and seen the films and listened to adults drone on about the logistics and the facts and the likelihoods, and then people he knew began to get bonded, or they didn’t, or they awkwardly spoke about bonds that had gone wrong, had only half-formed, had caused such misery and excruciating pain that they’d had to get it broken for them. He’d sat semi-patiently while his parents had told him that _sometimes our bonds are a little different, sometimes they aren’t what you expect._ And when he was a little older, they’d told him that _sometimes we just don’t bond at all._

Which meant that Braden hadn’t put much thought, much hope into the whole thing. Hadn’t thought about it at all really. It didn’t matter in the end though, because it never mattered – Braden hadn’t felt the sensation before, but every book and class and family member had all said the same thing. When you bonded, there was no universal feeling: for some it was like touching a bug zapper, for others it was a kick to the chest or the sensation of getting into a warm bath, but whatever the feeling, you just _knew._

So when Braden saw the kid stumble a little as he stepped onto the ice, saw him find his legs and skate to center ice with a huge, thrilled grin on his face – when the sight of him hit Braden like an ice-pick beneath his fingernails, the sharp agony like they were being torn from the quick, well. It was a little bittersweet beneath the pain, but yeah – Braden fucking knew.   

 

 

**Andre**

Andre’s life was _fantastic._ Playing with the Otters in the OHL had been great, but that was _nothing_ on playing in the NHL. His first game was also the first of the season, against the Canadiens, and even the fact that they’d lost in a shootout couldn’t dampen the fizzing excitement that came with _scoring in his first NHL game._ Andre didn’t know what to do with himself, couldn’t decide whether to seek out the affection and congratulations – freely given – from his teammates in the locker room, whether to call his parents or just go shower; ended up in a confused mix of being mostly-naked, rooting through his things to try and find his phone while he happily submitted to the various back-slaps and ass-grabbing his teammates proffered in congratulations.

Not everything was perfect, of course: he had a small blip during practice prior to the game, when he’d been hit with a weird shaky squirming in his stomach that went beyond the normal bounds of anxiety, but since he didn’t throw up or pass out, and the team were so welcoming and easy to get along with, he set it aside pretty much right away. It was hard to be too worried about his own performance when he was playing with a team like the Capitals. Tom and Mike were great, folding him into their life pretty seamlessly, and Ovechkin was as formidable as he was friendly; even Braden, who seemed sort of reticent around Andre, and a little stare-y, still made Andre feel warm and accepted. He knew right away that he didn’t want to be anywhere but here.

If Andre’s first goal was like electric shocks to his nailbeds, the second, the third, the fourth were like the time he’d burnt his fingers on the open wires in his laptop charger – the echoing shiver of it through his entire hand, up his arm, a little enticing even as the pain started to set in, the smell of burnt flesh from his fingertips making him gag.

Or – okay, maybe not quite as intense as that. But still. Playing in the NHL was pretty good, and then living with Nicke was pretty good, and later, with Tom and Mike; that was pretty good too. Pretty electric. Sometimes Andre would stop to wonder if he’d shocked himself stupid way back when, if something in that burn had changed the way his body reacted to things. It couldn’t be normal, the way his hands cramped and ached with an eager need to touch, to play, to sink themselves into everything he wanted to keep close. It probably wasn’t normal to get shivery goosebumps whenever he was slammed into by another player, to have to hide the eager way he wanted to push into the hands and arms and chests his teammates pressed against him. The strange feeling of static in the air when they brushed his bare skin. 

He wasn’t that good at hiding it anyway, probably, since by the time he moved in with Tom and Mike, there was no shortage of physicality from his teammates, never a point in time where he got so desperate he had to seek it out – something that hadn’t happened since first joining the Caps. Which wasn’t so much embarrassing as it was a little awkward to think about, remembering the way he had specifically sought out Braden during a morning practice one day, a man Andre hadn’t said more than a few words to, really, not without their being other teammates present at least. But Andre liked Braden, something about him interested him, made him want to know more, know what he was thinking when he looked so serious and determined behind his mask, wanted to press his body up against Braden’s heavy goalie pads and beg for his attention.

But then, Andre sort of felt like that about a lot of people, so it wasn’t _that_ weird. What was weird was the way he’d felt when he gave in during that practice, when he’d forced his way into Braden’s invisible bubble of personal space, ignoring the inexplicable hind-brain images that popped into his head – of rabbits and wolves and bugs caught between talons – and it had felt like he’d taken gulp of clean water, a sniff of fresh air after a lifetime of not knowing he was going without. It had felt really, _really_ good. And Braden had let him, which felt even better.

Braden said, “Hey,” like it was normal behavior from Andre. Which, maybe it was, with others, but not with Braden. Not usually. He’d smiled, a little tentative, his eyes sharp. Andre couldn’t help but lean in closer.

“Hey,” he said back. Or it could have been, “Is this okay?” Or maybe he’d just grunted his gratitude, Andre couldn’t be sure, because the air had taken on a strange sort of haze, his thoughts a kind of liquid quality that hadn’t lent itself to the retention of memory, of any sort of higher thinking. There was his body, there was Braden’s body, and there wasn’t a whole lot between that. It was a long, drawn out moment of breathlessness, of anticipation: until a whistle had blown somewhere, and they’d broken apart. Braden smiled ruefully, eyes a little glazed. Andre smiled back, even if he was confused about what had just happened.

But it was fine. It had been fine, Braden hadn’t complained or gotten angry or pushed him away, but later, after practice, Nicke pulled him aside with a serious look on his face. A more-serious-than-usual look on his face. When he spoke, it was in Swedish, which confirmed that Andre was probably in trouble.

“You have a death wish,” Nicke said, which was already not at all what Andre was expecting him to say.

“What?”

“I know you don’t like to talk about it, but you have to know that pushing into a – into Braden’s space like that without asking is a stupid idea,” Nicke said. Andre frowned, fighting the urge to cross his arms defensively.

“I know we aren’t that good friends, but he seemed okay with it. I would have stopped if he asked me to,” Andre said. Nicke rolled his eyes, clearly irritated.

“Are you being stupid on purpose? You never got taught not get into a shifters personal space without asking?”

“Shifters – uh, what do you–” Andre started, but then he’d thought back over the time he’d known Braden, over some of the remarks that he and other players had made. Over some of the things he’d read about shifters and non-humans in hockey and how many more there were than anyone thought. Andre _hadn’t_ thought though, really. You knew of some people who were openly non-humans, you saw others that couldn’t hide it in daily life, but you didn’t really _know_. Or at least, Andre didn’t know any. Hadn’t thought he knew any.

“Right,” Andre said, trying to contain whatever expression was probably on his face. He barely stopped himself from glancing in Braden’s direction, trying to see if – see if it was somehow visible. See what he’d missed. “I’ve never met a non-human before, sorry. I didn’t know.”

Now Nicke looked confused, raising his eyebrows in surprise before furrowing them again. “You’ve never met – but you – you’re– ”

“No, I’m not, uh, like that,” Andre said. “Did someone say I was?”

“No,” Nicke said quickly, still staring at Andre. It was disconcerting, being under that much scrutiny from him. Nicke did scrutiny very well. “No, I just thought – ah, don’t worry. Just behave yourself, Andre. And don’t tell Braden I told you.” Then he turned very quickly on his heel, snagging Ovi as he went, and left Andre to change in peace.

Andre must have looked a little shell-shocked, because Mike nudged him, a knowing smile on his face.

“I can bet that wasn’t just an invitation to dinner, huh. You good?”

“Yeah,” Andre said absently, shaking off the last vestiges of his shock, resolving to google some things, to find out what he could do to be better about Braden being – a _shifter_ , was what Nicke had said. Andre looked across the room at him for a moment, watching him strip off his pads, run his fingers through his hair, a little sweaty. Andre wondered what animal he became, if he was a wolf or cat or something else. Something bigger.

-

Braden occupied almost the entirety of Andre’s non-hockey related thoughts for a long time after that. They didn’t suddenly become best friends or anything, and Andre tried not to get too up close and personal, even if his body wanted the very opposite of that, but he was inexplicably drawn to Braden – couldn’t help but go over and bother him during warm ups, attempt to copy his intense yoga stretches to try and get him to laugh. Do anything he could to retain that laser focus, the prickling heat of it.

He didn’t notice any obvious indicators that Braden was anything other than a human, though, and as time passed he could almost forget. Almost. Because as much as Andre felt welcomed, felt happy and fulfilled and excited to be playing hockey every day with such a great team, there was this – this one thing. Ever since he’d started playing with them, there’d be these moments, not all the time, and not even with every player, but a few of them – enough of them, that were hiding something from him. Or maybe not him, maybe they were just hiding something in general, but the glances and the private discussions, the references to uninvited hangouts and the sudden silences when he sometimes entered a room – he couldn’t help but worry.

He had asked Mike and Tom about it one night, since they seemed not to be included either, but they had brushed Andre off, clearly aware of the secret, if not directly involved in it. Mike had gone so far as to roll his eyes at Andre’s plaintive begging for information, for _anything_ , which was terrible, because Mike was usually the most tolerant of Andre’s neediness. So, whatever. Andre generally avoided worrying about it too much, and did so successfully.

Right up until Mike Richards got traded to their team.

The thing was, Richie was fine. Richie was _nice._ He joined them with the echoes of controversy at his back, with a heavy droop to his shoulders and an air of – not mourning, but something like it. Andre couldn’t blame his teammates for welcoming him with open arms, couldn’t begrudge the way they asked him questions about winning the cup, about playoffs and physicality and all the history he had to offer them. But then he’d been quickly and quietly taken in by the group – the specific group of players with a secret club or whatever, and told all the secrets after two weeks that Andre still didn’t know after a _year_.

So maybe he got a little jealous.

-

Nicke and Richie were having a private conversation, since they were down a random corridor after a game and not in the locker room with everyone else, and probably Andre should have left and gone back the way he came. Gone and found the equipment guy that he’d been looking for, pretend he hadn’t seen anything.

“Why does _he_ get to know?”

Or maybe not. Andre didn’t have time to regret saying anything because they were both turning toward him, Mike startling a little, Nicke very much – not. Andre had the feeling that Nicke had known he was there before he’d even said anything.

“Um-” Richie started, and Andre could _see_ the lie on his tongue, felt a shivering heat burst to life at the base of his spine, an angry, jealous thing. Before he could say something he’d regret, though, Nicke took a step toward him, giving Mike a quelling look.

“We’re non-human,” Nicke said bluntly. Unapologetic. “We were going to tell you Andre, it’s – ah, it’s hard to know how most people will react, though. One non-human on a team is different to eight of them.”

“ _Eight_ of – what – and, and you both-”

“I’m a witch,” Richie cut in, looking a little wide-eyed.

“Right,” Andre agreed, watching Nicke watch him back cautiously, like he was anticipating Andre causing a scene, or having a breakdown or something. “And you-”

“It’s complicated.”

“Right.”

“ _Andre_. Get dressed, go home. Sleep. I’ll tell you everything, okay? Tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. Nicke would take him aside during practice like a child and tell him all the secrets he thought Andre couldn’t be trusted to keep himself. Well, that was fine. He’d just have to show Nicke how trustworthy he was during their conversation to make him feel bad.

-

Later that night, when Andre finally succumbed to his curiosity – climbing into his bed and turning off the lights, dimming his phone screen and feeling for all the world like he was doing something illegal, something _wrong_ – he typed _nonhuman_ into google, and he hit search. He’d done a little research, when he found out about Braden. He knew some things, knew a little about etiquette and a lot about types of shifters. He didn’t know much else though. Wasn’t sure where to start.

Wikipedia informed him that the word was non-human, that there had always been more than humans thought, but that they were often hidden, by choice or necessity. That they were sort of accepted, but usually with caveats. That Europe and Asia had a much higher concentration of non-humans, but no one was sure why. Andre swiped back, scrolled through some other links. Tried searching _witches_  and also _hockey nonhumans_ , and after that: _which hockey players are nonhuman._

Mostly, he found a whole lot of useless information. He found websites that were clearly not factual, and a few religious ones that didn’t seem like sources he should get his information from. When Andre looked at the time, a few hours had passed, and his eyes were beginning to feel gritty and dry, that irritating fire springing to life at the base of his spine again. He reached back absently to scratch at it, but the sensation felt bizarrely internal, a rumbling current that had begun to spread out from its source.

He ignored it, pressed play on the YouTube video he’d been watching about Jagr and population percentages and what that meant when there seemed to be no non-humans in a sport, only half listening to the voice-over drone on, too busy watching the hockey clips the person had stitched together of Jaromir Jagr scoring, of the Sedins giving interviews, of various older players who had begun to come forward after their retirement. Of a slideshow of current players as the voice questioned who else could be non-human, who else might be in the news next – lots of pictures of goalies, of Crosby, of Burns and Ovechkin and Mcdavid; mostly just the really _good_ players, was the thing. Like the only way they could be that good was if there was magic involved.

Andre didn’t know a lot about any of this stuff, but he figured that was probably insulting to everyone involved. The more he read and watched, the more Andre felt less betrayed that Nicke hadn’t told him anything so much as angry at half the internet for its extremely stupid ideas about players, non-human or otherwise. Andre winced when the burning heat abruptly began to sluice its way down the backs of his thighs, spread like tendrils around his stomach, no longer ignorable. It was pain and not pain, more anticipatory than it was any sort of physical sensation. Like the ache before an argument, the trembling in his chest as a child when he knew he hadn’t played good enough to avoid his father’s disappointment.

Andre tried to focus on the words he’d been reading, the little blurred lines that had been a YouTube comment about how non-human players had no place in the NHL, and all at once, he couldn’t stand to read any more of it, any of it. Nicke would tell him everything tomorrow, so he didn’t have to read anything about how half of his team, how Nicke and Braden and Mike would be hated if people knew, of the suspicion and anger that they would have to endure, just by virtue of who they were, and–

–and with a sudden, staticky _pop_ , Andre’s phone went dead, taking the light, the burning, and his sharp anger with it.

Andre exhaled in a rush, staring at nothing, calming down. It was hard to stay angry in the quiet cocoon of darkness. That had been – strange. He tried the power button on his phone, and when that did nothing, reached down the side of his bed for the power cord, figuring that maybe the battery was drained. The phone didn’t light up when he plugged it in, but with no other options, and suddenly feeling a double-overtime level of exhaustion settle over him, Andre tucked it under his pillow and was asleep before he could muster up the energy to be confused about what had happened.

By morning Andre’s phone was fully charged, and clearly working if the alarm going off was any indication. Fighting the urge to hit snooze, Andre pulled out the cord and tried unlocking it, finding his apps were still open – the YouTube video he’d been watching and the cluttered tabs of research in his safari app were all still there. _Huh._ Maybe his phone had just lost charge. Maybe the sharp burning was just indigestion or a rash or something. Maybe he should speak to someone about the fabric softener used on their jerseys.

Getting ready was rote; Andre let it push him through his morning routine, thoughtless and unquestioning. What happened last night was strange, maybe, but no stranger than anything else in his life. He was a hockey player, strange was the default. And anyway, he had practice to get to, a conversation to have.

-

Andre had figured they would wait until after practice to talk, but Nicke’s serious “ _Later_ ,” still made him nervous and anticipatory and unsure why exactly. He caught Braden’s eye across the locker room, startled to find him looking a little harried himself, only half way into his pads. Andre allowed the sight to calm him a little, though. Braden was the steadiest person Andre had ever met, and even with messy hair and a high flush to his cheeks, frozen with his fingers caught in the straps of his hockey pads – the affect was still a gentle, calming thing. Andre took a steadying breath, offered up a small smile. The quirk of his lips that Braden gave in response was enough to smooth away the last vestiges of his jagged anxiousness, and Andre got himself ready and onto the ice without another thought about the conversation with Nicke.

Practice passed without distraction, for the most part. If Andre’s eyes drifted towards the goal every so often, that wasn’t a problem that anyone else seemed to notice. It was only towards the end of practice, when his agitation started to creep back in, that Richie came over, nudging him in the side with his stick.

“Why are you so worried, huh? You look like you’re gallows-bound.”

“Gallows bound?” Andre asked.

“Like you’re worried Nicke’s going to eat you. Which he won’t – you don’t quite fit the meal plan.” Andre eyed him. “That was a joke, by the way.”

“I know,” Andre said. Then before he could think better of it, asked, “Could someone have cursed me?”

Richie blinked. “Why would someone have cursed you?”

“Can people curse you to have, like, burns or something? Is electric magic a thing? I read on this one website that witches– ”

“Hey, okay, it’s uh – it’s a thing,” Richie said, glancing upward and then back at Andre with a weary expression. “But maybe, we should – you should ask Nicke when you talk, yeah?”

“But you know what it is?” Andre asked, frustrated that Richie clearly knew something, but was putting Andre off _again_. Who knew if Nicke would even tell him everything anyway, Andre had no guarantee that he wouldn’t just brush him off with another excuse.

“Hey, um, maybe we should get Nicke,” Richie was saying, holding his hands out towards Andre, weariness having been replaced with active concern. Andre didn’t know why he was so worried, didn’t know why he had to go get Nicke, didn’t know _anything_ because no one had _told_ _him_ anything, and his back was itching and burning again, his nail beds aching like they were being prized away from the skin, and _there_ , again: the echoing _pop_ , and the sudden absence of light. Of feeling. He heard Richie sigh heavily next to him.

Andre tipped his head up towards the ceiling as a few dim backup lights flickered on, the exit lights glowing over in the corners of the rink. The pitch black didn’t last long enough to cause a commotion, but everyone had stopped practicing, murmuring and looking at Trotz for direction. Well, most of them. Richie was watching Andre with raised eyebrows, not surprised at all.

And across the ice, he could make out through the low lighting – both Nicke and Braden, staring in his direction.

-

Trotz told them, after the few minutes he waited to confirm the lights would take more than just switching back on, that practice was almost over anyway, and that they should be back tomorrow morning at the same time. Everyone nodded and grumbled and made their way through the dark to the locker room, bar Nicke, who had a wordless conversation with Ovi before snagging at Andre’s jersey and tugging him over to the bench, nodding to Richie as he left too. Braden was the last off the ice, and he watched them as he went, steady as ever, but clearly curious – and Andre had to fight the irrational urge to ask him to stay – but in the end he left them too, the resounding silence of the rink sprawling out in his absence.

Nicke cut into the silence before Andre had the chance to, sighing deeply. Andre wasn’t unfamiliar with Nicke’s exasperated sighs, but this one felt a little less like Andre had done something stupid, and a little more like Nicke was trying to figure out what he was going to say. That strangely made Andre feel a little less worried.

“I wasn’t, sure – before, but – Andre, you’re non-human,” he said. Which was. What.  _I’m not_ , Andre wanted to say, _I can’t be._ But all at once, every argument he could think of felt like a weak protest. He hadn’t ever thought he was non-human, hadn’t really even contemplated it last night, but – well. It made sense. The current under his skin, the flurry of static shocks caused by other people's skin on his own, and now his phone and the lights. Andre could do the math, and this was as straightforward as it got.

“Okay,” he said. Nicke raised his eyebrows.

“Okay?”

“Yeah. I thought I might be cursed, but I guess this makes sense. How did you know? And why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“Non-humans can usually just – tell. Like an aura. You probably can too if you focus,” Nicke said, rolling his eyes. “And I thought you were just private at first, but when I told you about Braden I realized that you didn’t know. When you didn’t show any abilities or magic I thought you might just be weakly related to someone who is. Didn’t want to say anything if no one else had.”

That was fair. Andre couldn’t really fault him for not saying anything, especially not after Andre’s confused response when he’d told him about Braden. Still though, it felt strange to only find out something so fundamental about himself when he was an adult. He wasn’t _human_. That would take some getting used to.

“Why are things only happening now though?” Andre asked, watching Nicke’s fingers twitch, itching for something. Maybe just snus.

“You know what the _Tivar kind_ are?” Andre shook his head. “They call us Godchildren in America? Yeah, well. The strength of your – abilities, I guess, depends on how close you are to the source. TJ is pretty close, but ah - Mojo, and a lot of the goalies in the league too, they all have weaker links, so their abilities don’t manifest that strongly. I’m close, though.”

“What’s TJ?” Andre couldn’t help but ask.

“Child of Bacchus. I’m sure he’d be happy to answer _any_ questions you have about it,” Nicke said, smiling at some private joke. “Our abilities are different though. I’m a conduit, sort of, for other non-humans. I can choose to do it, like kicking things into a higher gear, but to a certain degree just by being in proximity to me over time will cause a slight increase in abilities or feelings. That might be why you’re only experiencing things now.”

“But no one in my family ever said _anything_.” Andre tried to think back over his childhood, couldn’t recall any secret conversations or hidden away magic abilities. He would have to ask his mother, but he was pretty sure about that.

“Maybe it was a distant relative that kept it quiet, but the fact that you’re clearly presenting abilities means it’s probably atavism, like an evolutionary throw-back, you know?” Nicke shrugged enigmatically. “It’s rare, but it happens.”

Evolutionary throw-back. Friction – or maybe heat, or electricity magic. A secret of his own to keep from the world. Andre could cope with that.

“Do you have any other big secrets to tell me?” He asked, mostly joking. Nicke’s fingers spasmed on his thighs, eyes shifting briefly over to the locker room and back.

“Uh,” Nicke said, “Sort of.”

 

**Braden**

Braden remembered being in a club once, a non-human night that was thrown during every new moon that the non-humans on the team sometimes went to. They didn’t make a tradition of it, couldn’t go to anything like that with regularity in case word spread, but the comfort of darkness and other people like them drew them in more often than not. Ovechkin, as their unofficial human mascot, was relegated for the night to being their dubiously selected sober driver, dubious only because Braden didn’t think his sober driving was all that much safer than the alternative.

Either way, you could never tell he was the sober one by the way he threw himself into the mass of people on the dance floor, the unselfconscious weight of him pressed against whatever body came close enough, whoever sought him out. Nicke wasn’t the dancing type, but seemed happy enough to watch him make a fool of himself from the bar, his half-smile hidden by the drink he held close to his face. Braden knew, the same way that he knew indubitable facts about himself and the world; that he was a shifter, that the sun rose in the east, of the taste of salmon in the spring – that Nicke and Alex were bonded. That they had been for a long time, that their story had to be something of a fairy tale turned on its axis, a story about secrets and stolen moments and monsters with happy endings.

Nicke was painfully private about the whole thing, but the low heat that rolled its way up Braden's spine when they argued, the almost unbearable urge to shed his skin, to sink his claws into the ground and smell the wild air that settled around the two of them when they had private conversations in the corners of the locker room, fingers brushing over each other and eyes dropping to mouths, to throats – the way every non-human would shift and share anticipatory grins, a little wild, a little high on the feeling Nicke imbued them with when he let his control slip – that was as clear as anything. No confessions needed.

It was still a little startling whenever he really _saw_ it though. The effect that Nicke could have if he let it happen. The inexplicable way that Alex drew in humans and non-humans alike, curiosity or lust or sheer overwhelmed awe at his presence, both physical and in spirit. The heat that began to swell in time with the heavy bass, Alex’s wild laughter and Nicke’s snarl of a grin, sparks of energy between them both whether they were a foot away from each other or twenty. A lazy prickle at his neck and the slow rising flush of his cheeks told Braden what he already knew - that Nicke was allowing himself a moment, a few moments, to relax his almost iron-clad control. It wasn’t dangerous, exactly, for Nicke to do this, not unless he wanted it to be, but the feeling was a little like being drunk, or high, or a middle ground thereabouts.

For many of them their blood or magic or metabolisms worked too fast to gain any benefit from drugs or alcohol, so the pull of their true selves, the eagerness and the lessened inhibitions that came with Nicke’s laxness was as close as they could get to intoxication. Braden was sure his pupils were blown when he turned to Nicke with the panting urge to drop to ground, to fight or fuck or just revel in the bear pressing up against his rib cage and the tips of his canines – surely clear across his face, if not in the shifting tension of his body.

“Should I tone it down a little?” Nicke asked Braden seriously, his eyes still entirely focused on Alex. His eyebrow was quirked like he knew the answer already, though. Braden watched a bead of condensation slide its way down his beer bottle, catching on his thumb nail. His skin was so sensitive, so overheated that the chill of the bottle felt like ice. He placed it back on the bar as gently as he could, stared at the crowd, at the fleeting glimpses of his teammates with each other, with groups of women and a few sequestered away with men; all of them flushed and giddy. Braden caught sight of the odd tail here and there, of the shimmer of a body becoming less corporeal, and the bright sparks of electricity from someone else’s fingertips.

A lynx threaded its way around the outskirts of the room, tail swinging lazily.

The smell of fresh grass bloomed from a couple kissing at the other end of the bar.

Braden stared down at his fingers again, suddenly seeming incongruously human. “No,” Braden said, syllables catching on the rumble of his chest. “I’m just going to–” He kicked his shoes off without looking, took a step forward on two legs, and then another. And then on four.

-

The first time Braden’s parents had taken him on the salmon run he was only seven, but his bear skin was already surpassing that of his human shape, both weight _and_ height now, and his mom had called it good and helped him pack his bag for the week. They drove for _days_. He and his mom in one car (his dad staying at home for that trip), and his grandparents in the other, they inched their way towards their destination at what felt to Braden like a snail’s pace. He was sure he could have just run there faster, but his mom insisted not, so he mostly stopped himself from complaining about it.

When they finally finally finished their drive, they then had to get on a _boat_ , which was almost enough to make Braden wish he’d never even come, but then some of his aunts and uncles got on the boat too – his mom’s siblings – and he was so distracted telling them everything they’d missed since he last saw them that the boat ride passed in no time at all. But as they drew closer to their destination Braden started to notice their distraction from his stories, could tell they were almost there by the way they’d all begun to stiffen up, muscles thrumming with the need to shed their skin. Braden knew how they felt because he did too, itchy like he did when he went too long without changing, a familiar scent in the air nudging at him, telling him to _go ahead. Go home._

“Mama?” He asked quietly, equal parts nervous and excited. It was his grandma that answered though, her eyes closed, her head tilted back like she was savoring a sunbeam that he couldn’t see.

“This is where our kind come from, Braden, where the first of us dug his claws into the riverbeds and begged for a human body,” she said, opening her eyes and giving Braden a knowing look. “You feel it?”

He did. He felt it all through his body, like the trembling before an avalanche, the shaky desperate need to see it, to find that same river; to dig his toes into the sediment at the bottom, shed his skin in the spot where it happened. His eagerness must have been obvious, if the way his family laughed around him was any indication – fond, a little nostalgic.

“Of course you do,” his mom said, ruffling a hand through his hair and leaning down to untie her laces. Braden watched the rest of his family begin to do the same, and wordlessly followed suit, too excited to care about explanations. Mary, one of his mom’s sisters, did some pretend stretches like she was going to run a marathon.

“You ready bud?” his mom asked him, just as Mary stepped off the boat and into the water, disappearing beneath the surface with a splash. Braden let out a startled laugh when, moments later, the huge body of a bear resurfaced with a happy hoot. And just like that they were off: his family pushing and jostling each other to get into the water, as excited as Braden was to be shedding their skin here, in a place where it felt expected, felt truthful to do so. With one last shared grin with his mom, Braden took a running leap into the water after his family, shedding his skin as he went.

 

The rest of that first salmon run passed in a haze. It wasn’t a real salmon run, when the fish would all swim back to spawn in the thousands, and the real bears came out to feast on them before hibernation – real bears generally steered clear of shifters, happy to leave them in peace, but it was still a risk they didn’t like to take when there were so many, and often with new cubs to be protective of. So they had their own salmon run, when the shoals were only just arriving and most of the bears were other shifters, or else real bears that didn’t yet need to fight for territory over parts of the river.

And so they swam over to the banks of the river they jumped into, waving their paws at Braden’s human uncle as he steered the boat back the way they came, saying goodbye, for a little while, to their human side. Braden remembered flashes; of shaking his fur out and following his family through the forest, sniffing at the underbrush and snapping at bugs and tripping over tree roots until they finally got to another river edge. Of watching them snatch salmon from the water with their paws and their mouths, the huge fish tails flapping about so hard sometimes they managed to free themselves. Trying to catch his own fish but only ending up tripping and going face first into the water – his mom nudging over pieces of the fish she’d caught for him to gnaw on, heedless of the blood and gore that smeared his snout and paws.

He remembered the curious Goshawks that drifted about, waiting for a chance to snag scraps of leftover salmon. He remembered dozing in the sun, full and happy.

When the weekend was over and they traveled back home, Braden didn’t want to shift just yet, ended up curled in a ball in the backseat while his mom started the long drive back, only every so often casting him gentle, exasperated glances. He got coaxed into shifting back when they were a few hours out from home, and it felt weird and not to be back in human skin, refreshed but also a little like he’d taken a long nap that he wanted to get back to.

“You’ll get used to it. Coming back the first time is the hardest,” his mom said as he climbed over the console into the front passenger seat. “And put your belt on.”

Braden did, settling into his seat and back into his skin, rediscovering the strange awkwardness of his human body.

-

All that was to say that Braden couldn’t imagine a world where he wasn’t a shifter, couldn’t imagine being one but not relishing in it, difficulties and all, not having it pervade every part of his life and his memories. He saw the world through the lens of a shifter, a non-human, a hockey player – and to find out about Andre, that he was non-human, and weak blood or not, that he didn’t _know_ , was unthinkable. Braden had been a little hurt and a lot frustrated in the beginning, when Andre hadn’t mentioned the bond or been forthcoming about who he was or what his intentions were with Braden. That had been quickly replaced with tentative bemusement when Andre threw himself at Braden (alongside many other teammates) with an unselfconscious neediness that often presented itself as brazen flirting, clearly not avoiding Braden at least.

He was a little breath-taking to watch, cat-like in the way he shamelessly sought out affection, both physical and otherwise. Braden didn’t experience the full force of it until that day Andre had boxed him in by the goal, snuck into the personal space that most people unconsciously allowed him, shoved himself in as close as he could get, chest to chest, white hot sparks of electricity coming off of him and settling beneath Braden’s sternum. The hazy liquid quality to his thoughts was familiar, in description if not experience; the settling of a soulbond was overly-romanticized, but Braden could sort of see why. He felt like honey, light-filled and glistening. He couldn’t find it in himself to care if Andre never verbally acknowledged their bond, if he only wanted it to be platonic, so long as he could keep this – this feeling, forever.

And then there was the whistle, and a sudden rush of cold air when Andre skated away, still smiling and flushed.

 

Braden hadn’t done something so embarrassing as spend the rest of practice daydreaming about the moment, about the future moments ahead – but he couldn’t help but be hyper-aware of the space where their bodies had touched, the phantom burn of static still shimmering over his skin. He noticed Nicke talking to Andre after practice of course, but thought nothing of it until Nicke had offered to take him to lunch with a serious expression on his face.

Nicke didn’t say much of anything, to begin with, which wasn’t all that unusual, but once they had ordered their food and received their drinks he said bluntly, “So, about Andre,” and then: “He doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t know we _bonded_?” Braden said, incredulous. How could you not _know_?

Nicke froze. “You’re bonded?”

“Isn’t that what–” Braden started, but Nicke cut him off, shaking his head.

“He doesn’t know he’s not human. I don’t think he knows you’re bonded then, either,” Nicke said. “He said he’s never met a non-human before. It’s... he’s telling the truth Braden.”

And it turned out that he _was_ telling the truth, at least as he knew it: After the incident – and Nicke informed him that he told Andre what Braden was, which was fine by him – Andre was polite and courteous about Braden’s personal space in that careful, clumsy way that humans tended to be when they wanted to show their acceptance without verbalizing it. Of course, Andre wasn’t very good at it – he forgot himself half the time, and Braden found himself relishing in those moments, happy for whatever he could get.

Because - and maybe it was the wrong decision, but they decided not to say anything. Braden wanted to, wanted to tell him everything and ask him how this had happened, how he didn’t know, but Nicke had a half dozen reasons it was a bad idea, and Braden just – didn’t know how to start the soulbond conversation without talking about him being non-human. So the conversation was benched, indefinitely. Which was. Fine.

And so time passed, hockey always taking precedent, an easy distraction from life when he needed it.

 -

Braden had begun to notice Andre’s twitchy frustration at the same time everyone else did, a blatant jealousy when Richie joined them, and Braden was close to calling it and telling Andre everything, when he’d apparently had enough himself – Nicke had messaged their groupchat out of nowhere to check with everyone that it was okay to disclose what they were to Andre, and then had separately messaged Braden:

 **Nicke  
**                 I wont tell him about the bond.

 **Braden  
                ** ok

 **Nicke  
                ** You should though. He seemed freaked out. I think it would help.

 **Braden  
                ** yeah. I think so too.

It wasn’t a hard decision. Braden was sure of Andre, sure that they could be good even if Andre didn’t  _want_ Braden, not the way Braden wanted him. But Andre was sweet, and loving, and a lifetime spent as friends was more than good enough. Braden only hoped that Andre would be okay with finding out what he was.

-

After a sleepless night worrying, Braden was thankful when a text from Richie came through on his phone, an excuse to finally get out of bed. They weren’t that close, really, but they texted sometimes.

 **Richie  
                ** did some belomancy

**Braden**

                What’s that?

 **Richie**  
                divination w arrows. i use darts tho. told me today = new beginnings  & journeys & messy feelings.  
also there’s gonna b a powercut. g luck!

 **Braden**  
                thanks  
                how did you get all that from darts?

He only sent him back a crystal ball emoji and a winking face, which was fair. Richie was unusually forthcoming for a witch, especially in comparison to those like Sasha Semin, who shrouded himself so fully in secrets that rumors of blood sacrifices and naked pilgrimages through Siberia ended up as the pervading image of his magic – which was perhaps the point – but Richie still kept some of it close to his chest, so Braden wouldn’t push.

Regardless, the information Richie had given him was equal parts hopeful and terrifying. He wished, briefly, that the universe would offer a concrete sign of a good or bad outcome, even as he knew that it never worked like that. So Braden pushed through his morning routine, stretching out his limbs and taking time to clear his mind. He ate breakfast. Wondered if maybe he should shed his skin, but ultimately decided against it, figuring that however today went, good or bad, it might be something he would need more tonight.

-

Andre was frazzled and twitchy when Braden saw him in the locker room, looking a little like how Braden felt but dialed up a notch or five. Braden couldn’t help but watch him, even when he was caught looking, wishing desperately for a confirmation of their bond if not for anything else but the ability to push through to him some level of calmness. As it was, he offered Andre a smile, happy with the way his shoulders dropped at least, the widening smile he got in return.

Braden got out on the ice as quick as possible – eager, for once, to get practice over and done with. He put his focus into it as fully as he could, let his thoughts drift and curl around the animal part of him, usually not required in practice, but good when he didn’t want to think. And so he didn’t, for a while. Kept his eyes on the puck, on the ice, on feeling the stretch of his muscles and the sweat at his nape, on the familiar need to protect his goal.

Did it very well, right up until the lights went out.

-

In the same way that you could tell a non-human when you saw one, you could also tell when something happened as a result of someone’s abilities, their magic. So before he even looked over at them, he knew it had been Andre that caused the lights to blow out. Knew that whatever conversation he’d had with Richie had caused it, knew that it was anger or frustration that had acted as a catalyst. Braden squinted a little through the semi-darkness, finding Andre easily, stood next to Richie, who was blatantly not surprised at all – power cut, of _course_ – and staring up at the lights overhead.

Andre looked back at Richie, a furrow between his eyebrows that Braden itched to smooth out, and then he looked up, wide-eyed, at Nicke – standing not far from the goal, and at Braden. He looked uncertain, but not all that shocked. Not angry, at least. Finally, Trotz told them that practice was over, and everyone started to filter out to get dressed, mostly successful in not looking back at Andre curiously as they went. Braden was a little less subtle, but couldn’t help lingering as Nicke tugged Andre over to the bench for their inevitable talk. He finally made his way through the tunnel though, fighting the urge to stay back and listen – feeling a little like a child waiting for his friend to finish talking with the principle – something that Nicke inspired surprisingly often.

His teammates gave him a wide birth when he entered the locker room, something that Braden was grateful for. He didn’t bother doing much more than strip off his pads and skates, settling back in his stall with his head against the wall, eyes closed. Trying to center himself now was sort of a lost cause, but he did his best, clearing his mind, letting the starker emotions come to the forefront and recede back again, allowing for the impatience and possessiveness of the bear (maybe also a little his own), the worry and the nervous excitement. When Nicke finally came back through the tunnel, nodding for him to go through, Braden was as ready as he could be.

 

**Andre**

Later, Andre was informed of all the things Richie was right about, all the things he’d seen and predicted but never told anyone, not until the very end, when he decided that Braden would benefit from the smallest of prophetic bread crumbs. So, it was a lot of things he was right about, but mostly it was this: Andre had never had a _tidy_  feeling in his life. Messy was his forte. He liked to think of himself as a happy person, generally, but he could never hide his emotions away like Nicke or Braden did, couldn’t compartmentalize even a little. If he was happy, everyone knew it, if he was angry, everyone knew it, and if he wanted attention, well they knew that too. No amount of parental sternness could have trained it out of him, and neither could sideways glances from teammates, bemused expressions on teacher's faces. Andre’s emotions were a precariously full glass of wine, _five_ precariously full glasses on an only half-decent waiter’s tray, ready to spill over at the slightest nudge. Even if the waiter didn’t stumble and he didn’t soak anyone in his, like, metaphorical emotional overspill, everyone was still _aware_ of it, was the thing. Everyone was watching and waiting and even if they didn’t mind getting splashed with a little emotional wine, they had to _notice it_.

Or whatever. The point was, Andre threw himself at life the same way he threw himself into hockey, and accepting whatever life gave him in return, be that a broken arm or finding out that he was non-human or finding out that he was _bonded_ – he could deal with that. He was just surprised to find out that at least some part of himself wasn’t plainly visible to the outside world.

“ _Platonic_.”

“Uh, yeah,” Braden said, “We - you never said anything, and I know now that you just – didn’t _know_ , but–” And there was that incredulousness again – probably entirely warranted, if Andre was honest. If the non-human thing had explained half of Andre’s experiences since he’d been drafted, then the whole soulbond thing definitely explained the other half. A significant increase in goalie-related sex dreams, for one thing.

“Do you want it to be platonic?” Andre asked. He thought he knew the answer already, thinking back over a year and a bit of – well, completely unsubtle glances, to be honest. Now that he thought about it.

Braden shook his head, said, “I could.”

Andre thought that martyrdom didn’t suit Braden, but also that he really wanted to touch his hair. He felt a tingling under his nails, a phantom image coming to mind of Braden, sweaty and damp haired after his routine hair soaking during a game, letting Andre run his fingers through it, hold on to the ends, kiss him thoroughly. Andre wondered if maybe one of his magic things was seeing the future. Or if maybe he just needed to speed things up a little.

“You don’t _want_ it to be. And neither do I,” Andre insisted.

“But you never – I don’t want you to feel pressured because of the bond. Maybe we should wait til–” Braden started, but Andre absolutely couldn’t let him finish that sentence.

“I didn’t _never_. I follow you around like every practice. I try yoga stretches for you. You’re – your so – ugh–” Andre was running out of words, and rather than pick his way through an incoherent monologue about how he wasn’t at, like, life-long soulbond levels of feelings right now, but that he _could be,_ that he saw the _potential_ – that Braden was the absolute Platonic ideal, in that Plato and every other Greek dude would have seen him and said _hell yeah_ , and also something about the ratio of straight nose to prominent eyebrow was only found once in a millennium and should be coveted at all costs, and then that other thing about how Andre had wanted to climb Braden like a tree since he first met him.

So, rather than say  _that_ , Andre just went ahead and kissed him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andre's research.

[ESPN front page after Jagr is outed]

 

[the comments/video Andre is looking at when he turns off his phone.]

 

[A not so nice religious article.]

 

[an early 2000s personal website; the focus of the page is non-human bonds.]

 

[excerpt from Soulbonds Wikipedia page]

 

[excerpts and relevant references from Non-human bonding Wikipedia page]

 

[Excerpt from Reynauld Rinell interview]

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of things: I did a certain amount of googling with regards to Canada and Braden's family, but his aunts/uncles were fully made up. Similarly with timelines, I did like a whole bunch of research but still probably got stuff wrong. Lets all agree to handwave my shaky concept of time. Also it didn't come up, but Braden is a [Kermode bear.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermode_bear)
> 
> I have a hundred thousand headcanons about this universe, so I welcome any questions, and comments are always appreciated :)
> 
> And finally, here is a very important outtake that I couldn't fit in: "kissing a man was relatively knew to him, but Andre never met a challenge he didn't want to put in his mouth."


End file.
